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VAT practical manual 2021.

Requirements

1. Subjective requirements

It applies to resellers of the goods indicated below.

You are a reseller:

One who habitually acquires goods for resale. This status also applies to the organizer of sales at public auction when acting on his own behalf under a sales commission contract.

2. Goods to which it applies

The special regime applies to used goods, works of art, antiques and collectibles.

Used goods are:

Movable property used by a third party that is susceptible to reuse and is acquired for resale.

For example, a machinery reseller cannot apply this regime to a computer that he has used in his activity, since the requirement of having been previously used by a third party and being acquired for the exclusive purpose of its sale is not met.

The following are not considered used goods:

  • Those used, renovated or transformed by the reseller himself or on his own account.

  • Recovery materials, containers, packaging, gold, platinum and precious stones.

They are objects of art, provided they meet certain requirements:

Paintings, drawings, engravings, prints, lithographs, sculptures, statues, sculpture casts, tapestries, textiles, murals, ceramics, enamels on copper, photographs.

They are antiques:

Objects that are more than 100 years old and are not art or collectible objects.

They are collector's items:

  • Philatelic items.

  • Collections and specimens for zoological, botanical, mineralogical or anatomical collections, or those of historical, archaeological, paleontological, ethnographic or numismatic interest.

This special regime cannot be applied to investment gold.

3. Operations to which it applies

  1. Sales of used goods. When they have been acquired

    • To anyone who does not have the status of businessman or professional.

    • To those who receive it by virtue of an exempt operation, whether internal or intra-community, because they have been used by the transferor in exempt operations without the right to deduction or because they have been acquisitions that did not give the right to deduct the supported quotas.

    • To another reseller who delivers it applying this same regime.

    • It can also be applied to investment assets transferred in an intra-Community transaction by someone who benefits from the tax-free regime in their Member State of origin.

  2. Sales of antiques and collectibles. The same criteria apply to them, although it is also possible to apply this special regime when they have been imported by the reseller itself.

  3. Sales of art objects. When they are in any of the situations indicated in the two previous sections or when they have been acquired from companies or professionals who are the authors or rights holders of the same. They may also temporarily apply the special regime to sales of art objects acquired from businessmen or professionals other than resellers when a reduced rate was applied in their acquisition.